


Magic

by lugubrious



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Infidelity, M/M, everyone is bi except eddie whom is gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-11 20:05:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13531584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lugubrious/pseuds/lugubrious
Summary: a fix it fic wherein Rich is a magician touring New York, Eddie still runs his car company, and Stan is that one happily married friend we all have, and are bitterly jealous of.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is definitely canon verse, the only thing that's changed is richie's profession. Also this mostly takes from the book and the 1990's miniseries, including the appearances of all the characters! because dennis christopher and harry anderson are amazing and i love them.

When Rich is told he’ll be driving with some fancy car company instead of just having to flag down any old cab, he doesn’t think much of it. It’s hard to think about anything except for the fact that he may –  _ may _ – have made it to the big times.  _ Maybe _ . Not that it’s getting to his head or anything, quite the opposite. He’s been riding a wave of fizzy nausea since he left California. Because, see, he’s always been pretty demanding of everyone’s attention. He worked his way through childhood with his foot in his mouth and god’s good fucking graces, only now he’s going to be the full centre of attention for about half an hour and he’s guaranteed almost 70% of the people watching will be participating in what his mother called ‘active listening.’. Oh yeah, he’s getting his attention all right. Jesus–please–us. So he spares the fancy car company barely more than a thought – that thought being ‘Christ,’ until his flight touches down in New York, New York, and he has to make his way through to the area where all those people stand, holding signs with names on them.

_ Will the sign be big enough to see my name on it?  _ He wonders, suitcase wheels whistling softly  over the marbled floor.  _ Do they even  _ come  _ in different sizes, or are they all the same? Maybe the more important you are, the bigger the sign. Imagine if Elvis was still alive. It’d take two men just to hold that baby. _

His sign is a fairly standard size, easily big enough to read from a few paces away, and he changes his path slightly to meet the driver. He’s still pretty caught up in the daunting task ahead of him when he comes to a halt in front of a smartly dressed blonde gentleman. 

‘Hiya,’ he says. ‘Rich Tozier at your service.’ 

For a moment nothing happens, and Rich swaps his sunglasses for his regular glasses, tucking them into his shirt collar and squinting against the sudden glare.

‘Howdy pardner,’ he tries again, ‘you got ma name writ on this’ere sign o’yers?’ and he gestures to the white plastic rectangle now dangling limply by the drivers side. 

‘Richie?’ says the driver. Rich blinks. 

‘No one calls me that anymore,’ he says, startled out of his Voice. 

‘Richie,’ the driver repeats, more urgently this time. ‘Richie Tozier.’ 

Rich looks warily into the face of the man opposite him. He sees soft blonde hair, neatly parted but curling at the tips, he sees pale skin stretched around wide brown eyes, he sees – he sees – 

‘Eddie?’ Rich breathes. ‘Eds?’ 

Eddie’s mouth snaps shut, nose wrinkling.

‘Don’t call me Eds,’ he grits out, and then pauses. Rich pauses too. For a long moment they simply stand there, staring at one another, until Rich lets out a loud laugh and drags Eddie in with one arm hooked around his neck. 

‘Holy  _ shit _ Kaspbrak,’ he says, pulling Eddie’s smart hat off with one hand. ‘Holy fuckin’ shit!’ His heart shoves into his throat and struggles there but he can’t wipe the grin off his face.‘You’re – so what, you’re driving limo’s now or something?’ 

‘Sure am,’ Eddie says, and his smile is wide despite the lingering shock around his eyes. ‘My own company.’ 

‘Wow, I got the big cheese himself.’

‘Oh, yeah, I’m the big cheese, Mr. Magician.’ 

‘You know about my show?’ 

Eddie shrugs, and Rich lets his arm slide off of his neck. He can’t let him go completely, though; now he grips his shoulder loosely, feeling the smooth material of Eddie’s jacket. 

‘Sure do. I’ve seen fliers. But, you know, it’s funny –‘ Eddie frowns slightly now, ‘I didn’t really – you know – connect the dots until just now. I guess I knew who you were and everything, but until you were right in front of me it didn’t quite compute.’ 

‘Classic Eds,’ Rich says warmly, ‘you always were a real fuzz brain.’ 

‘Speak for yourself, Trashmouth,’ Eddie whips back, and Rich snickers. 

‘Damn. Damn! You know I haven’t seen any of the losers in about…six years.’ 

Together they begin walking out of the airport, Rich finding himself close enough to knock Eddie’s shoulder. He does, and Eddie shoves him with his sharp elbow, and Richie pulls him into a headlock and it’s so – easy. It’s so very very easy and Rich forgets for a moment that they’re both in their twenties now with jobs and houses and – and – 

‘So, you got a wife?’ 

‘No.’ 

_ Oh _ .

Eddie slips Rich a smirk.

‘Got a fiancé.’

‘Mawage… that bwessed awangement, that dweam wifin a dweam… Edster you stud muffin!’

Eddie stares daggers at him. ‘Edster is worse than Eds.’ 

‘Noted.’ 

‘What about you?’ 

‘Oh,’ says Rich, thinking back to the one and only date he’s had in the last three years, ‘I’m swimming in it.’ 

‘In what?’ 

‘Pussy, Edward.’ 

‘Fuck off,’ says Eddie, opening the car door. Rich sits shotgun and wags his finger in Eddie’s face, real close. 

‘Careful now, or I’ll put in a bad review. ‘Harassed and verbally abused by driver.’ I could sink you.’

Eddie doesn’t reply, he just beeps his car horn. 

‘Very funny.’ 

‘Thanks.’ They pull out of the car park and onto the road. ‘How long are you in New York, anyway?’ 

Rich recalls, briefly, his manager sitting across from him at his desk, fingers steepled like some kind of school principal. But then Steve pulled out a bottle of  _ Jack Daniels _ and Richie remembered,  _ right – I’m a goddamn adult _ . 

‘Here’s the schedule,’ Steve had said, pushing it across along with a glass of drink. ‘Two days in New York, then Yonkers, and finishing off here – Atlantic City.’

‘You know what they say.’ Rich took a gulp of whiskey. ‘It’s bonkers in Yonkers.’ Then he’d grinned at Steve. ‘Too easy, I know, but shumtimes you gotta do what you gotta do, ol’ boy.’ Then he’d coughed loudly and wetly – as was Colonel Buford Kissdrivel’s way. 

‘Dunno yet,’ he hears himself say now, watching the road disappear under the front of the Hurst. ‘I’m booked for… a few days, at least. Might be a week.’ 

‘Yeah?’ Eddie takes his eyes off the road and focuses on Rich for a moment. ‘You should come for dinner then.’ 

‘I dunno, Eds. How gourmet are we talking here? I mean, I’ve grown accustomed to a certain type of lifestyle and, well, if I don’t get my caviar I’ll just up and die.’ 

‘If only, Dick.’ 

Rich flips him off and Eddie returns the gesture while keeping his gaze fixed on the road. 

‘I hope all your drivers aren’t this unprofessional.’ 

‘If you’re not careful I’ll retract my kind offer.’ 

‘Hey.’ Rich raises his hands in surrender. ‘I wouldn’t want to deprive you of my company.’ 

‘Tuesday?’ 

‘Sure. I’ve got a show from five to six, so I’ll be there around six–thirty at the earliest.’ Rich stops for a moment, and his heartbeat skips carefully into a jog. ‘You could come to the show,’ he says. 

‘And why would I do that to myself?’ 

Rich snorts. ‘You wound me, ol’ boy,’ says Colonel Bufford Kissdrivel. ‘Bring pain to the ‘eart.’ 

‘If I agree to go will you shut up?’ 

‘Ah,’ Rich claps Eddie on the shoulder. ‘You love me, Eds.’ 

‘Do I?’ Eddie muses, looking – asshole that he is – as though he’s seriously considering the answer to that question. 

It takes another twenty minutes for them to pull up in front of Rich’s hotel and when they do, Rich hesitates for a full thirty seconds before getting out. He can’t explain it to himself for the rest of the evening exactly what it was he felt in that moment when he knew he’d have to let Eddie out of his sight. Some kind of crunching, ripping sensation deep in his chest. The last time they’d seen each other was… six? Seven years ago? And for those six or seven years Eddie… well. He’d still existed somewhere in Rich’s mind – you couldn’t be best friends with someone for that long and not think of them fondly from time to time, but he wasn’t… present. He’d been, along with all the other losers, the hint of a feeling, maybe a vague outline. Frozen. And now here he is, alive and moving and – and  _ smiling _ and damn it all if Rich can’t help but feel as though the Eddie in his mind falling silent again after they part. 

He could never have explained these thoughts to another person – he can barely comprehend them himself. The closest he gets is figuring that maybe, like a house with a hole in the roof that everyone forgets until it starts to rain, Rich hadn’t realised there was a hole in  _ him _ until Eddie re–appeared and started slipping back into place.

+

Rich’s first show goes fine. He stumbles a little at the start, but then, about six minutes in, he gets his first real, big laugh and something in his gut just… settles. Like, sure you’re standing on a brightly lit stage performing magic tricks for over a hundred people, but things could be worse. Things could be much, much worse. 

He even gets a volunteer up on stage for the second half of the show, a young woman with short black hair. ‘Maybe she’s a magician as well,’ he thinks later, after the curtain’s closed for the last time and he’s found her number slipped into the pocket of his jacket. 

He doesn’t plan on calling, but it’s no hit to the old ego.

When the second show rolls around Rich finds himself waiting for it with just a spark of excitement mixed in with the nerves. If nothing else, he figures, stepping out onto the stage once more, it’s nice to finally be  _ paid _ to shoot off his mouth.

Eddie’s waiting for him in the dressing rooms when he finishes, beaming. 

‘How’d you do it?’ he says, immediately upon spotting Rich. Rich smirks. 

‘You’ll have to be more specific, Eds.’ 

Eddie rolls his eyes. ‘The bottle one. With the coins and the scissors. How’d you get them in there?’ 

‘Uh, magic?’ 

‘I know the others are sleight of hand, right? You distract the audience and then voila, you’re pulling a coin out of your ass. But –‘ 

‘I have never,’ Rich says with great dignity, ‘pulled a coin out of my ass. Sometimes I just fart pennies and science has yet to –’

‘I just don’t get it.’ Eddie pulls the bottle out of Rich’s grasp – that trick had been his big finale and he had still been holding it absently in his left hand. Eddie taps the bottom, and then peers down the neck of the bottle at the two coins and the pair of scissors inside. Finally he looks at Rich with undisguised admiration. 

‘What’s the trick?’ 

‘I told you.’ Rich spreads his arms wide and a bouquet of flowers slips into his hand. ‘Magic.’ 

‘Gimme a break, Trashmouth.’ The admiration shifts backwards into a more familiar expression, but Rich can still see it lingering at the corners of Eddie’s mouth. He grins, presenting the bouquet to Eddie.

‘For your girl. So, which voice is your favourite?’ 

‘Sex attorney,’ Eddie says immediately. 

‘Mine too.’

‘Sometimes people wanna know how I fit all those balls in my mouth,’ Eddie quotes, doing a passable imitation of Rich–as–Kinky–Briefcase, ‘and I say, years and years of practice, my friends.’ Then he winks. 

‘I had you in mind when I wrote that joke.’ 

‘You’re a dick.’ 

‘Yeah, well.’ Rich knocks his shoulder into Eddie’s. ‘You knew that when ya met me. Now! Come, my good sah! Your leedee ehweets.’ 

‘I hope you like Italian food. Our neighbour’s been over, she and Myra made pasta.’ 

‘Homemade pasta?’ Rich whistles. ‘You’re too good to me.’ 

‘Don’t I know it. But Myra’s been worrying about it all day.’ 

‘Awh.’ Rich waves this away. ‘Pasta’s my favourite. Always has been, ever since I was a kid.’ 

At this, Eddie looks at him sharply.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘Yeah. It is. I remember that. Yeah. The only time mom ever let you in the house we had pasta for dinner, and after she told me never to see you again because you were a ‘bad influence’.’ 

Rich nods slowly. Now that Eddie’s mentioned it, the whole scene seems to open up before him. Sitting in Eddie’s precision neat kitchen, Mrs. Kaspbrak across from him, watching with her pointed gaze. ‘Thanks for dinner, Mrs. K,’ Richie had said, because he might have been a Trashmouth but he wasn’t a total monster. She sniffed. 

‘You’re welcome.’ 

Afterwards, when Eddie was walking Richie out, Richie had leaned over and whispered, 

‘Reckon I’ll get a second date?’ 

‘You keep away from my ma,’ Eddie replied, but he’d seemed suddenly less uncomfortable than he’d been all night.

It wasn’t a particularly special memory to Rich, it didn’t have any big emotional meaning except – except he hadn’t  _ had _ that memory until Eddie mentioned it. It simply hadn’t been there, and now it was. Rich looks carefully at Eddie. His pinched expression suggests something similar just happened to him, too. 

‘I just remembered,’ Rich says slowly, and Eddie’s eyes flick to his face. ‘What a fox your mom was, Kaspbrak. D’you think I should call her sometime?’ 

Some of the anxiety bleeds out of Eddie, and he scoffs. ‘Yeah, I’m sure if anyone could bring her back to life it’d be you. One word and she’ll be climbing out of her grave just to get away from you.’ 

‘Oh shit.’ 

‘What?’ Eddie pulls his inhaler out of his back pocket, and Rich almost does a double take at the sight of it. TThen there’s the familiar, unfamiliar sound of Eddie taking a puff from it –  _ what’d we call it? Eddie taking off? _ – and he says,  _ ‘Shit _ she’s dead?’ 

‘Yeah.’ Rich pauses dumbly. ‘Sorry, Eds.’ 

Eddie shrugs, but he’s eyeing the inhaler like he could go for another puff. ‘It’s ok. It’s been a few years. And… it’s been a long time since…’ He shakes his head again. ‘C’mon, Myra’s probably almost done cooking.’ 

‘Right.’

+

Eddie’s house isn’t what Rich was expecting, somehow. It’s larger than he imagined, a bit more impressive. Only one story, but long. Spacious. _I’ll bet_ _Mrs. K probably had something to say about the dangers of a stuffy house_. In the summer air, all the windows have been thrown open – but the empty windowsills are covered with fly screen. Rich could almost imagine a pool in the backyard, and he tells Eddie so, who shakes his head a tad ruefully. 

‘Pools are more danger than they’re worth.’ 

‘So’s your face.’ 

Eddie splutters with laughter. ‘Shut up.’ They walk into the kitchen still laughing, and Eddie calls out, ‘Myra! We’re home!’ 

‘Eddie!’ the reply comes from around the corner and is quickly followed by a fat woman with long dark blonde hair plled up in a bun. She smiles at Eddie, then faces Rich a little nervously. 

‘Hi,’ she says. ‘I’m Myra.’ 

‘Rich Tozier,’ Rich replies as warmly as he can, because it’s not this woman’s fault he’s feeling – suddenly – incredibly unsettled. She smiles again, and it’s a sweet smile, it really is. She’s a bit like one of those ladies rich has seen in paintings from the renaissance, all pale and soft. Myra turns to Eddie with a strangely frantic look in her eye and asks,

‘How’re you feeling today, Eddie? How’s your chest been?’ 

‘Fine, Marty,’ Eddie replies easily. ‘Food nearly ready? Smells amazing.’ 

At that, Marty brightens. ‘It sure is. Sarah was over here earlier, you know. She’s our neighbour,’ she directs at Rich, who nods. ‘She only just left, actually. Oh, and Eddie? I was thinking we could have the salad you made with dinner tonight, there’s still some in the fridge.’ She pulls the vast pot of sauce off the oven and walks over to the dining table with it, setting it down on a trivet.

‘We take turns cooking,’ she tells Rich, who’s watching this display of domesticity from behind the kitchen bench with a scientific curiosity. ‘Because of how our shifts at the car thing worked out. It’s easier like this. And Eddie’s a fine cook. He took a class a few years ago.’ 

‘You work at the cab company too?’ 

Myra nods. ‘That’s how we met.’ 

Rich nods, mulling that over – and also pocketing Eddie’s little cooking class away for future use. God bless Myra. The pasta is soon deposited next to the sauce, and Eddie’s salad – an impressive concoction of Parmesan, pear, green leaves, and walnuts – is piled into a bowl at the end of the table. Myra finally pulls out a bottle of wine and gestures with one dimpled hand, ‘Please, sit!’ 

Rich does, with Eddie on his right and Myra opposite him. For a few moments Rich sets aside the curled, uncomfortable feeling in his stomach and begins to load up his plate with admittedly delicious looking food. But then as they start to eat and talk, he finds he can’t ignore it, or get rid of it. It just sits there, sending sticky fingers of unease into his gut – and it isn’t until Myra reminds Eddie to chew slower because he, ‘might get indigestion,’ that it hits him. 

Myra looks like Mrs. Kaspbrak, all the losers would have agreed – but that hardly matters. What  _ matters _ is how much Myra  _ acts _ like Mrs. Kaspbrak. She’s a lot gentler, Rich remembers enough to know this now, but there’s still a cloying air of fear that sits around her. And Eddie, after so many years being slowly smothered by his mother, seems to have escaped only to another creature willing to beat him down for ‘his own good.’ 

Because as much as Myra seems like a fine person in her own right, there’s too much of Mrs. K. in her to be good for Eddie. Hell, even if Rich hadn’t remembered anything at all about Mrs. K., Eddie’s hypochondria speaks volumes about his mother’s stellar parenting method. And the funniest part about it is, Eddie is one of the strongest people Rich knows. The kind of person who’d stick fast by you in a crisis. The kind of person you can count on without having to think about it. Rich has no stable proof to support these feelings, no memory of some heroic feet from Eddie, but still they sit, side by side with his unease and just as unshakeable. Irrefutable .

He doesn’t let either of these things show, of course. Instead he puts on a Voice – a this–pasta–is–delicious–thank–you voice and makes nice as long as he can. Then Myra says,

‘and what with the wedding in two weeks,’ and Rich freezes. Just a little. Just for a moment. 

He recovers fast. ‘Two weeks? Where’s my invitation?’

Myra flushes. ‘You’re welcome to come.’ 

To Rich’s surprise, Eddie agrees with this. If anything, he looks suddenly embarrassed. ‘Yeah, of course you are.’ 

‘Don’t worry about it, Eds. I was just teasing.’ Rich puts his hand out and pinches Eddie’s cheek.  _ There’s no way in hell I’m coming to that. No way. _ ‘I’ll probably be back in Cali by then, anyway.’ 

Myra nods, happy enough with that, but Eddie looks at Rich a little longer before returning to his dinner. Rich drinks some of his wine and wishes he had a lot more alcohol than this tiny little glass. He looks over at Eddie.

‘Hey, how’s about we go out for a drink after dinner? Reminisce about the old days, you know? Like, hey, remember when dinosaurs walked the earth and TV was all black and white?’ 

‘Should you, Eddie?’ Myra looks at her fiancée quickly. ‘You know how smoky bars can get. And they’re always so dirty – you could just stay here. We have more wine.’ 

Rich hates her. Eddie smiles a little. 

‘It’ll be fine, Myra. We won’t stay out long.’ 

‘I’ll get him back to ya in one piece.’ Rich ruffles Eddie’s hair until Eddie pushes him away. Myra watches, anxious, and Rich wants to show her how strong Eddie is, how capable, because Eddie deserves to be with someone who knows that and if she’s who he wants to be with, well then. But he isn’t sure how. All his talk, and still everything that comes out of his mouth is useless. 

Eddie thanks Myra for the meal, then turns to Rich, looking excited. 

‘Shall we go?’ 

‘Let’s shall,’ Rich declares. He feels, somehow, like a coward.

+

Myra hadn’t been lying. The bar  _ is  _ smoky, but pleasantly so. Eddie doesn’t seem to mind anyway, his inhaler sitting firmly in his back pocket, a gin and tonic in one hand. He’d spent a good few minutes informing Rich of the health properties of tonic water, but after several drinks he forgot about the tonic, and seemed more affected by the gin. Which was something Rich, who had downed about four of those bad boys and a beer in the space of an hour, could relate to. 

‘You know what we should do,’ he says, leaning across the bar. ‘We should call the other losers. I mean, don’t you miss ‘em? I miss those bastards.’ 

‘God, do I ever,’ Eddie agrees, nodding slowly. ‘Not all the time. But right now? Jesus I miss them.’ 

Rich sits back, thinking. ‘How do we get in touch with them, though?’ 

‘Yellow pages.’ 

‘Yes.’ Rich points at Eddie. ‘Yes. Genius. Yellow pages. Eddie m’boy, your cunning mind–‘ 

‘Shut up!’ Eddie puts his hand over Rich’s mouth. ‘We don’t have time for a big speech about how amazing I am, Trashmouth! I already know! Let’s just call them!’ 

Rich licks Eddie’s hand. Eddie scowls and jerks his hand back.

‘You’re lucky I bring sanitizer everywhere or you’d be a dead man, Richie.’

‘There are few finer ways to go than being beaten to death with an inhaler .’ He turns to the bartender. ‘Excuse me! Hey there. Name’s Rich Tozier. I was wondering if we could borrow your yellow pages. And do you have a phone?’ 

The bartender reaches under the bar and pulls out the thick book, slamming it down so that some of Rich’s drink spills. 

‘Local calls only,’ the bartender says, glowering at them.

‘You got it,’ Eddie replies, while Rich looks on in dismay.

‘What about my poor Ma? She’ll have my hide next time I’m home for not callin’ more, she will, God bless ‘er ‘eart.’ 

‘Officer Nell?’

Rich closes his mouth, nodding, and Eddie grins. 

‘He was the one who told us off for building that dam.’ 

‘I remember. A real prince among men. Did you find Bill’s number?’ 

Eddie nods, pointing. It only occurs to Rich as he’s dialling that they didn’t even need to discuss it – calling Bill first. As the phone rings, he feels his palms dampen slightly. His face is pressed close to Eddie’s in order for them both to be able to hear the person on the other end.

Finally, ‘Hello?’ 

Rich squawks in delight.

‘Big Bill!’ he yells. ‘What’s happening, Big Bill? You havin’ any good chucks or what?’ 

There’s a soft crackling sound while Bill remains quiet, then he says, ‘Richie?’

‘The one and only. Eddie’s here too.’ 

‘Bill!’ Eddie calls. ‘Hey! How are you?’ 

‘Jesus,’ Bill says faintly. ‘I wasn’t expecting –‘ 

‘What happened to that stutter of yours, huh?’ Rich interrupts. ‘Where’s that loveable mushmouth gone, and who’s this smooth talker in his place?’ 

‘You know what’s nice?’ Bill says. ‘You know what’s real nice? Comforting even? The fact that Richie Tozier at age 25 is just as much of an ass as Richie Tozier at age 15.’ 

Eddie snickers. 

‘I aim to please. So what’re you up to?’ 

‘Well, before you chuckleheads called I was at a party.’ 

‘Jeez, sorry to pull you away,’ Eddie sayspipes up. 

‘Are you kidding? This is incredible! Well, talking to Eddie is. Trashmouth I could do without.’ 

‘Try being back in the same room as him.’ 

Rich scoffs. ‘I am a beacon of light, and you ingrates are  _ lucky _ to have me.’ 

‘Your face and my butt, Tozier,’ Bill says, comfortably. ‘How’d this happen, anyway? You two together like this.’ 

So they explain about Rich’s show, and Bill tells them about his life and his writing and by the time they finish talking, over three quarters of an hour later, Rich’s mouth hurts from smiling. Eventually they hang up, with Bill promising to ‘look them up soon.’ 

‘Who next?’ asks Eddie, beaming. 

‘Ben?’ 

They look Ben up, and reach him too – but only get in about ten minutes before he has to hang up. 

‘Hey, we get it,’ Rich assures him as Ben apologises. ‘The pressures of being a rich and famous architect, man. You go knock ‘em dead.’ 

‘I missed you guys,’ Ben says in lieu of goodbye, earnest as ever. Next they try Mike, who they don’t reach even after three redials, and then Bev, who, from the sound of it, sits down heavily when Eddie says, ‘Hello, Bev?’

‘Eddie?’ she whispers. 

‘And the handsomest man on earth.’ 

‘Richie?’ she’s laughing now, and hiccoughing a little bit. ‘What – what the hell are you guys doing?’ 

‘We’re elbow deep in shenanigans.’ 

‘We’re at a bar,’ Eddie says, and Bev laughs again. 

‘Right. Wow. Listen to you both, with your deep manly voices. What happened to the biggest nerds I know?’ 

‘Oh they’re still around,’ Rich reassures her, ‘only now their balls have dropped.’ 

‘Beep beep Richie.’

‘It’s just science, Bev. You’re going to have to grow up one day.’

‘Yeah, out of the two of you, Beverly is the one who needs to grow up. How’ve you been, Bev?’ 

‘Oh, you know.’ She laughs for the third time, and now there’s something so strained to the sound that even drunk, Rich can easily pick up on it. 

He glances at Eddie, who looks back, brow furrowed. 

‘You know, I’m in New York for the week. What do you say to coming down for a day or so, Bev? We could all get together.’ 

‘I can’t,’ Beverly says. ‘I wish I could, but this company I’m working for – my boss, he needs me around this week. There’s a merger taking place.’ 

Somewhere on Bev’s end, a door opens and Rich hears a faint voice in the background. Bev murmurs agreements with it, then says, ‘Sure, be right out. Guys, I have to go. Thanks for the call. Don’t wait so long before the next one, ok?’ 

‘Sure thing Bev.’ 

‘You’re the best of all of us, Bev,’ Rich says suddenly. ‘You know that, right?’ 

‘Sure,’ Bev replies. ‘But I mean, considering it’s you guys, it’s not that hard to be the best.’ 

She hangs up, and Rich lets the phone drop onto the table, sitting back in his chair. Eddie’s looking at him, but Rich doesn’t look back. He clears his throat, then starts flipping through the yellow pages again. 

‘Last but not least,’ he says, ‘Stanley the manly.’ 

Eddie dials this last number while Rich orders another beer. Out of all the losers, Stan is the one he’s seen least over the years. Even Bev, who moved away first, came back one summer when they were all fourteen – after Stan had moved away he stayed away. 

‘Hello, Uris residence?’ 

‘Am I speaking to Stanley Uris?’ 

‘You are.’ 

‘Congratulations! You just won a trip to New York, New York! No expenses paid, you will have to fund your own journey and accommodation here  _ but _ we can guarantee you good times for our favourite Jew.’ 

‘Stan!’ Eddie steals the phone out of Rich’s grasp and holds it to his ear. ‘Hey, it’s Eddie! Eddie Kaspbrak!’ he pauses. ‘Yeah, that was Richie. He’s in New York for a show, can you believe it?’ Another pause. ‘No, still a real pain. How are you?’ Rich sticks his tongue out, and Eddie grins. ‘You  _ are _ welcome to come down, though. You could spend the night at mine, we have a guest room – Richie’s here for a few more days, but I can call you when he’s gone if you’d rather avoid him.’ Eddie laughs, then nods, despite Stan not being able to see him. ‘Tomorrow? I can pick you up from the airport.’ 

Rich punches Eddie’s shoulder.

‘He’s coming?’ he mouths. Eddie nods. Then he says, 

‘See you soon,’ he says, and hangs up. 

‘Fuck!’ Rich pounds the bar. ‘Stan the man Uris coming to town!’ 

‘He sure as hell is.’ 

Eddie hands the yellow pages back to the bartender with thanks, then looks at the clock. ‘We should head back. Myra will be worrying.’ 

‘Right. Yeah.’ Myra. Rich gets to his feet and stretches. His bones feel loose and heavy. ‘If I get a cab from your company back to the hotel, do I get some kind of discount for knowing you all this time? Like compensation – sorry you had to hang out with Eddie Baby when he was a twelve year old, here’s a cab ride on the house?’ 

Eddie pushes the door to the bar open and follows Rich out onto the street. ‘What do you mean a cab?’ 

‘Well… I could walk home I guess. But why would I do that? You know, to my body.’ 

‘No, why don’t you just stay the night? We have a fold out couch.’ 

‘Oh.’  _ Oh _ . ‘Yeah, sure. Thanks Eds.’ It’s actually lucky, because last time they parted ways Rich hadn’t been able to sleep for a long time – he’d turned on his music and played it so loud the bed vibrated until one of his neighbours kicked the wall and yelled at him to ‘ _ Turn that fuckin’ thing off! _ ’ and then he’d just sat there, in the dark and the silence, trying to remember the feeling of Eddie’s coat between his fingers. Because if he could remember that, really specifically, then he probably hadn’t imagined it. Probably.

+

It’s very dark except for wavering light that comes periodically, throwing Richie’s surroundings into relief. He’s sitting on the ground – it feels dirty under his hands but he doesn’t care. He’s watching something happen before him. Everything is washed out and pale in the light, except for a deep red stain spreading on the dirty ground and the smudge of a face. 

‘Eds,’ he says, and his body aches with fear.  

‘Oh dear,’ someone says quietly. ‘Oh deary me. That’s too bad, ain’t it Richie? Just too bad. I’d still blow him though, ‘course I would. Blow him for free. Will you tell him that? Pass on that message from old Pennywise? Tell little Eddie that we all miss him down here.’ 

Richie wakes up with his mouth already open, ready to scream because  _ it’s the fucking clown, It tracked me down, It found me after all these years and any second now I’ll see It’s pale, painted face through the dark living room and _ – 

The light switch flicks on and Richie’s heart slams itself almost painfully into his throat, then falls back to its usual position with a crushing sensation that reminds him of an accordion. 

‘Eddie,’ he gasps, and then, to his horror, a few tears slip out onto his cheeks and hang there. Eddie doesn’t laugh or mock however. He crosses the room to where Richie sits on the folded out couch and slips onto the mattress beside him.

‘Bad dream?’ he asks. His inhaler is half visible, hastily shoved into his pyjama trouser pocket. 

‘You could say that,’ Richie says. He tries for a shaky laugh. 

‘Do you remember any of it?’ Eddie’s eyes, normally a lighter, softer brown are almost black, making it seem as though his pupils have blown wide, swallowing his irises’. Richie hesitates, then shakes his head – no, he doesn’t remember anything. Just awful, burning fear. Sweat dampens the back of his shirt and he tugs it off his sticky skin, searching desperately for a joke or a Voice that will break this horrible spell they both seem to be under right now. 

Then Eddie does something that proves just as effective as any joke could be. He puts his arms around Richie and pulls him in close. Richie wastes no time mirroring the gesture and pushes his nose into the flannel of Eddie’s top. He inhales slowly. Eddie’s breath is warm, he can feel it under his collar and down his back. 

‘You know we hugged like this before you moved away with your Mom?’ Richie hears himself saying. ‘We were having a sleepover – you, me and Mikey. The last losers left in town. But I was next to you and you woke me up, shaking like a tiny, asthmatic earthquake.’ 

Eddie snorts. His cheek touches briefly against Richie’s. ‘I remember.’ 

‘You had a bad dream that night,’ Richie mombles. He presses his thumbs into Eddie’s back, remembering – for the first time in years – how Eddie had cried hot, silent tears onto his neck and how afraid he’d been of – what? What had he been afraid of back then? Losing Eddie, among other things, not that he’d really let himself be aware of it at the time. But it’s been seven years and Eddie still feels the same in his arms like this. 

‘Eddie?’ Myra’s hesitant voice cuts clean through the quiet night. 

Eddie pulls back a little, so Richie can see his face.

‘I told her I was getting up for a glass of water.’

_ You shouldn’t marry her _ , Richie doesn’t say. ‘The ol’ ball and chain, huh?’ he tries instead – it falls flat, but then he didn’t really mean for it to be funny. Eddie ignores that, studying Richie’s face.  _ Why did you come out here? How did you know to?  _

‘You should go back to bed.’  _ God, don’t go back to bed _ . ‘You need your beauty sleep.’ 

Eddie smiles faintly.

‘You’re one to talk.’ 

‘C’mon, Eddie.’ Richie grins now, hoping the room is dark enough to cover how insincere the expression is. ‘Thanks for comin’ out for Richie Tozier’s 2am freakfest, complementary gift bags at the door.’ 

‘Richie–‘’

‘Eds. I’m fine.’ 

Eddie nods and gets to his feet. Richie watches in slight dismay; he’d expected it to take a little more convincing, at least. And Eddie always ran warm – already cold air is raising goose bumps on Richie’s forearms, the back of his neck. ‘See you in the morning, then.’ 

‘Later, alligator.’ 

He watches as Eddie walks out into the hallway, then rolls over and spends the next few hours watching shadows on the wall and wishing he could just  _ fall asleep, there’s nothing to be afraid of, Richie. Nothing. _

+

In the morning Richie makes pancakes because he can, and treats Eddie to a real good show of being okay after the previous night’s breakdown. He isn’t sure if Eddie believes his performance, however – of all the losers Eddie was the one who always managed to peel away Richie’s voices and his pretences to the bone and gristle underneath. 

But it could be he’s too tired himself to bother, seeing as he lets Richie go easily, when Richie pleads work errands. 

‘I’ll see you this evening,’ he’d said absently, and Richie nodded. ‘Myra’s working tonight, and I was thinking we could take Stan back to the bar.’ 

‘Sounds good to me,’ Richie responded, standing on Eddie’s doorstep with his thumbs hooked into his belt loops. The grin on his face is mostly genuine – it’s  _ Stan _ for Christ’s sake – but he still doesn’t breathe quite right until he’s shut the door of his hotel room and sunk onto the bed. There’s a small radio on the bedside table, and he switches it on and turns the music up loud like before, loud enough to push through some of the lingering shakiness, –  _ god I’d die without rock and roll _ , – and sits on the bed with his back against the headboard. 

This time around, saying goodbye to Eddie was a little easier, maybe because he’d be seeing him again in only a few hours (maybe because this time Eddie is  _ part _ of what Richie is afraid of). 

Eventually he gets to his feet again and turns the volume down, then calls Steve. His manager picks up on the second ring and begins the conversation with a brisk, ‘Where the hell are you?’ 

‘New York.’ 

‘You’re supposed to be on your way to Yonkers!’ 

‘I know.’ Richie cradles the phone in one hand and his cheek in the other. ‘I was thinking I’d stay in New York and just commute to the shows and back.’ 

Steve makes a few grunts and Richie can hear him tapping away at a computer. ‘That’s doable,’ he says eventually. ‘Short notice though, huh, Rich?’ 

‘Last minute decision.’ 

‘All right. You’ll need to take a cab from your hotel in two hours to get to the venue.’ 

Steve hangs up before Richie can thank him, as is his way, which means he’ll be back with a favour to ask soon enough. Maybe another call from Colonel Buford Kissdrivel to Steve’s niece, a big fan, or a special appearance at Steve’s brother’s wife’s birthday party. Easy, whatever it is. Richie sets the phone back on its hook and stares around, feeling smudgy.

The hotel room is quiet, most of the guests having vacated their neighbouring rooms, and there’s that smell of citrus cleaning product all hotels are saturated in. It’s so different from the fold out bed in Eddie’s living room, and so removed from the everything Richie has been experiencing these past few days, that it’s simple to just lie down on the stiff bed and go to sleep. 

And this time, he doesn’t dream. 

He wakes up an hour later, all parts of him sewed back up and steadily in place where before they’d been starting to split at the seams (like a grubby white glove over green, monstrous fingers) and spill over.

He showers and dresses quickly, relishing in the mounting excitement and lessening anxiety that comes with each show. There’s no way the anxiety will ever go away, he doesn’t expect it to, but it’s a good feeling – to enjoy what you do. He wonders if Eddie enjoys being a limo driver. Probably. He’d always been one for travel, the one who knew exactly how to get the losers where they wanted to go. After all, he’d been the one who’d –

The phone rings.

‘Cab here for you, Mr. Tozier,’ says one of the people at the front desk.

‘Thanks,’ Richie says, awash with disjointed frustration. ‘I’ll be right down.’

+

‘Stanley goddamn Uris!’ 

Both Stan and Eddie, already seated at a booth in the far left corner of the bar, turn at the sound of his voice – so do a fair few of the other patrons, but Richie ignores them. He bounds across the room and slips onto a seat opposite the two of them, beaming.

‘I can’t believe you’re really here!’ 

‘Neither can I,’ Stan says, and it’s such a  _ Stan _ thing to say, dry humour and all, Richie and Eddie lock eyes, giddy. 

‘How long’s it been, huh?’ 

‘What year did you move away again, Stan?’ 

‘I was 13.’ Stan takes a considering sip of his cider and then shrugs. ‘So it’s been about twelve years.’

‘Jay– _ sus. _ ’ 

‘I know.’ Stan grins. ‘Guess there’s a lot to catch you guys up on.’ 

‘Well.’ Richie spreads his arms wide. ‘We’re not going anywhere. Except your mom’s place, Uris, but I don’t have to be there until 3.’

‘Nice, Richie.’ 

‘Aw, Eds, don’t worry, your mom will always have my heart. But a man has needs.’ 

‘Shut up.’ Eddie focuses on Stan. ‘So you’re an accountant?’ 

‘Yeah.’ Stan shrugs. ‘It’s not glamorous or anything but it pays the bills. Stacy and I – that’s my wife –‘ 

‘You’re married?’ Richie whistles. Funny how he doesn’t feel any of the disappointment or confusion he felt upon hearing about Eddie’s engagement. Yeah, real funny. ‘What’s she like, your wife? Too good for you I’ll bet.’ 

‘Without a doubt,’ Stan agrees. ‘She’s swell.’ 

Richie cackles, delighted. ‘Swell! Gawsh, ain’t that just dayn–dee!’ 

Stan shrugs, looking unabashed. ‘Only way to put it.’ 

‘She sounds great,’ Eddie says. ‘Shut up Richie, you jackass.’ 

‘Saw–ry.’ Richie chuckles. ‘I missed you, Stanny.’ 

‘Yeah, I missed you too, if you can believe it. Both of you.’ 

‘Me too.’ Eddie grabs his drink and raises it in the air. ‘A toast to you guys, and the rest of the losers. They suck for not being here, but we love them anyway.’ 

Richie and Stan clink bottles with Eddie and each other, then drink.

+

‘You have any pictures from your wedding?’ 

Stan nods, pulling out his wallet and opening it. In the small, plastic covered pocket is a photo of Stan with his arms around a pretty, smiling woman. Neither of them are looking at the camera – their gazes are aimed slightly to the left. ‘I really love her,’ he says, appro of nothing. ‘I haven’t loved anyone like this since Big Bill.’ 

Richie chokes a little on his drink.

‘Whaddaya mean?’ he asks eventually, his voice rougher than usual. Stan shrugs. 

‘I loved him.’ 

‘We all did,’ Eddie says, stirring his drink with his straw, and Stan nods. 

‘Yeah, we all did, but I mean like… _ love _ love.’ 

‘You can’t be gay,’ Richie blurts out. ‘You have a wife!’

‘ _ Richie _ ,’ Eddie says, but not with his usual mixture of exasperation and fondness. 

‘I mean–‘  _ God _ , Richie thinks,  _ no, that’s not _ – ‘I don’t care if you’re gay or not, I just don’t understand. I thought it was you either go one way or the other, that’s all.’ The conversation is still very much Stan–centric, but Richie has to try not to direct his words at Eddie – he needs Eddie to  _ know _ – 

‘I don’t think so,’ Stan cuts in, rescuing him. ‘I know it’s supposed to be one way or the other, but that seems like a lot of bullshit. I’m not saying I’m gay, but I’m sure as hell not  _ not _ gay. Does that make sense?’ 

‘Sure,’ Richie says, a little weakly. It does make sense. He downs the rest of his drink and the alcohol makes him shudder. ‘So – you had a thing for Billy Goat’s Gruff, huh?’ 

Stan nods, and, inexplicably, blushes. ‘I blame the drinking for that little revelation,’ he says, with mock–bitterness. ‘But yeah. Big time. He was so… commanding. But at the same time, he was a huge dork. And he was funny, and –‘ 

‘Jeepers.’ Richie flicks Stan on the forehead. ‘You can stop now, Shakespeare.’ 

‘I’d forgotten,’ Stan says, frowning a little. ‘That I felt that way. Until tonight.’ 

‘Me too.’ 

Richie and Stan both look at Eddie, who shrugs. ‘I don’t mean I was in love with him, I just mean – I’d forgotten how important you guys were to me. I mean, Bill was basically my brother. I would have died for that kid, you know?’ 

As soon as he says it, all three of them fall silent. Richie feels an odd, teetering sensation, as though they’re all standing at the Grand Canyon, spitting over the edge.  _ Someone yank me back! Someone, please, anyone – _

‘He’s published,’ Eddie says, almost abashed, as thought to make up for what he just said, and Richie falls on the topic eagerly. 

‘He’s a regular household name, Bill is.’ 

‘What’s he write?’ Stan asks, and from his expression he seems almost as relieved as Richie is to have sidestepped that little bombshell. 

‘Horror books. Have you read any, Richie?’ 

‘Hell, I didn’t know he was a writer until yesterday.’ 

‘And Haystack? You know, Ben? He’s a famous architect. Saw him in the times a few weeks ago.’ This time Eddie doesn’t mention how he probably hadn’t connected the renowned architect with Ben ‘Haystack’ Hanscom, and neither Richie nor Stan do, either.  

Without Myra in the back of Eddie’s mind to call him home, they close down the bar together in their booth and Richie can’t help wishing they lived closer to one another. Sure, he’d managed six years without these guys, but that was because he’d forgotten how much better life was  _ with _ them. Now that he’s been reminded, how’s he gonna go back? Hell, after only three days the idea of going that long, Eddie–less, again, makes his stomach ache a little like it used to when he was a kid. All hollow and echo–y. 

Eventually the bartender tosses them out, kindly enough, and they begin to wend their way back to Eddie’s house – Eddie insisting Richie crash there again, along with Stan. By the time they get a few blocks within Eddie’s house, Stan has Richie’s arm slung over his shoulder to keep him steady. Eddie had refused Richie’s other arm, claiming to be,  

‘Just fine, I can manage just fine, Dick.’ 

Richie had shrugged, content to watch Eddie weave his way through the empty streets. And if he stayed within arms reach just in case there was an unexpected pole or something, well. 

‘How’d you do it?’ Stan asks eventually, watching with bleary admiration as Richie leads him the way down the street – almost walking steady. ‘You had as much as I did, more, maybe.’

‘It’s magic, Stanny,’ Richie replies comfortably, with the barest hint of slurring. 

‘That’s all he does in his shows,’ Eddie pipes up. ‘Just gets audience members on stage and then drinks them out from under the table.’ 

‘Impressive.’ 

‘What can I say?’ Richie spreads his arms wide and grins. ‘I know what the people want.’ Then Stan staggers slightly and he quickly takes hold of Stan again. ‘But you sure can’t handle your liquor, huh?’ 

‘I don’t drink much,’ Stan protests. Eddie jerks his head to the right, and Richie follows him up the driveway to the – now familiar – front door of Eddie’s house. ‘Stacy and I don’t do it often.’ 

‘Shit.’ Richie laughs. ‘Are we bad influences, then?’ 

‘The worst,’ Stan says, and Eddie grins. 

‘I could never be a bad influence on anyone.’ 

‘Yeah, you’re far too cute.’ Richie goes to pinch his cheek and misses, tweaking his nose instead. Eddie shakes his head ineffectually. 

‘Stan, the bed’s ready. Richie, you’ll have to sleep on the couch again.’ 

‘Not a problem, Eds.’ Then, synchronising his voice with Eddie’s, ‘Don’t call me that!’ 

‘Wow.’ Stan blinks. 

Eddie huffs. ‘You’re such a jerk.’ 

‘Guilty as charged.’ Richie, with one arm still slung around Stan’s shoulder, lays his free hand on Eddie and for a moment, just a moment, Richie feels – something. It surges through him, he would have been knocked off his feet if Stan and Eddie didn’t suddenly seem welded to him. His hair stands crisply to attention on the back of his neck, sweat slips down the side of his face and under the line of his collar and then – it’s gone. His hands drop to his sides and he rocks back, aware that the other two reacted in much the same way. Eddie’s breath is coming in familiar, hitching gasps. Stan is completely silent. Richie speaks first, because he has to. 

‘Jeez you guys are better than blow.’ 

Neither of them laugh, but Eddie manages crack a smile. He takes a puff of his inhaler, and then touches Stan a little hesitantly on the shoulder. 

‘I’ll show you to your room. Night, Richie.’ 

‘Sleep tight, Eddie Baby. And you, Stanley. If you want me, you know where to find me.’ He winks, and Stanley rolls his eyes. 

‘ _ Goodnight _ Trashmouth.’ 

They both walk out of the room. 

‘I’ll miss you,’ Richie calls. He grins, reaching for the bed, and his hand brushes the frame. A spark snaps between his fingers and the metal, he pulls back with a hiss.  _  Jesus. _

+

He doesn’t wake up with a hangover, none of them do – which seems like a strange kind of miracle. In fact, he feels oddly energetic. With Stan’s flight in the afternoon and Richie’s show even later, the three agree to go on a tour of New York’s most tourist–y sights and sounds.  Eventually they end up in the M.E.T. with Richie peering out the window instead of looking at the art, like you’re supposed to in a world–renowned art gallery.

‘What are you looking for?’ 

‘Parade of some kind.’ Richie turns away from the window and shakes his head.

‘What,’ he asks, indignant, ‘is the point of coming to New York if I can’t sing twist and shout on a float down an avenue?’ 

‘You know that film’s set in Chicago, right?’ Stan asks. Eddie whacks Richie on the shoulder. 

‘How about catching up with one of your oldest friends for the first time in six years?’

‘Aw, cute.’

‘What’s cute?’

‘Thinking childhood nostalgia compares to a re–enactment of the legendary twist and shout sequence from Ferris Bueller’s day off, 1986, directed by John Hughes.’

‘Doesn’t the desire to re–enact that film stem from childhood nostalgia, though?’ asks Stan, and Richie falls backwards, clutching his chest.

‘Damn,’ he groans. ‘He got me.’ 

‘Yeah Stan, you got off a real good one.’ 

‘Yowza, yowza,’ Stan says. Eddie grins.

‘Cripes, I forgot he used to say that. What a moron.’ 

‘Oi! I may be a moron, but–‘ 

‘But what?’

Richie considers for a second, then shrugs. ‘No, I got nothing. YOW–za.’ 

‘Didn’t you hear what Stan said? That was Chicago. Moron is  _ kind _ for you.’

‘Sorry I have  _ flaws _ Edward.’ Then Richie laughs. ‘Just kidding, no I don’t.’

‘Idiot.’

‘Shouldn’t we be looking at some art?’ Stan interjects, gesturing to the several paintings hung around the small room. ‘You guys can be idiots anywhere and this is my first time in the M.E.T.’ 

‘You should bring Stacy here sometime, Stan. Does she like art?’

‘You bet your fur,’ Stan says, and they all grin at each other. ‘Yeah, she minored in art history.’ 

‘What time is your show again, Richie?’

Richie tears his hopeful gaze away from the parade–less street and looks at Eddie. ‘6:30. It takes two hours to get there, and the cab is coming to the hotel at three.’ 

‘And Stan, when’s your flight?’ 

‘Four.’

‘So we have enough time for one more New York staple – bagels.’ 

‘You’re welcome.’ 

Richie glances at Stan. ‘For bagels?  _ You’re _ Mr. Bagel? All these years of searching and I’ve finally–‘ 

‘They were brought here by Jewish immigrants. From Poland.’ Stan interrupts. 

‘Cool. All Polish Catholic immigrants brought were…’ Eddie thinks for a moment. ‘As far as I know, the Polish polka.’ 

‘Don’t sell your ancestors short, Edster. They also carried the genes needed to create the world's first half human, half goblin.’ Both Stan and Eddie raise their eyebrows, and Richie gestures at Eddie’s face. ‘You know. Because he’s ugly.’ 

‘Wow.’ Stan can’t hide the grin spreading across his face, and Richie beams at him.

‘Gotcha, Stanny.’ He hooks his arm around Eddie’s neck and yanks him in, ruffling his hair. ‘Why’m I so goddamn hilarious, huh, Eds?’ 

‘Stopped clock,’ Eddie says. 

‘Huh?’

‘A stopped clock is right twice a day.’ 

‘Not if it’s a twenty four hour clock.’ 

‘You’re an idiot.’ 

‘And  _ you _ have asthma.’ 

Behind them, Stan clears his throat.

‘Are you two done? I have a plane to catch, and I want a bagel.’ 

\+ 

It sucks, saying goodbye to Stan. It’s really the pits, even though Stan insists he’ll call, and they’ll all see each other again ‘real soon,’ because Richie can’t shake the feeling he won’t see Stan Uris again for at least another ten years, if that. He doesn’t voice his fears, though. How could he? ‘Don’t go, I’m afraid I’ll never see you again?’

He just hugs Stan as sincerely as he can, and claps him on the back, and says, ‘say hi to the wife for me,’ and does all the things he’s  _ supposed _ to do. When the plane’s taken off he and Eddie hold each other’s gaze for a moment. 

_ Wind against the back of his legs. Nothing but air in front. Nowhere to go.  _

‘You’re leaving tomorrow?’ Eddie asks, and Richie nods. 

‘Late flight, though. Six-forty AM take off.’ 

‘How’d you get such a crap deal?’ 

Richie waves his hand vaguely. ‘That’s what you get for messing around with your manager’s carefully planned schedule.’ 

‘What do you mean?’ 

_ Uh _ . Richie shrugs.

‘I’m a terrible manag–ee.’ Then, hastily, ‘Are you working today?’ 

Eddie nods. ‘I’m pretty busy until tomorrow afternoon.’ 

‘We should do something before I leave, then.’ 

Eddie nods, and then checks his watch. ‘Shit, I’ve gotta go.’

‘You driving someone famous tonight?’

‘Nope. Just rich. Have a good show, tonight, Trashmouth.’ 

‘Have a good jerk off tonight, Eds.’ 

Eddie walks away through the airport, and the last thing Richie sees of him is the middle finger of his left hand, raised casually over his shoulder. He grins and then glances at his own watch, which reads ‘fourteen thirty-nine.’ 

‘Fuck,’ Richie mutters, and jogs over to the taxi area to hail a cab.

+

Richie’s final show the next day is also his furthest away, and he spends a good four hours in transit, sitting next to one of Eddie’s drivers – a woman named Tahani. By the time she returns him to the hotel he’s staying in, the sky is a dusky mauve and they’re on a first name basis. 

‘Have a good flight,’ she says, while Richie is opening the door and unfolding himself onto the sidewalk. ‘And don’t be afraid to mention the exemplary quality of this cab ride to Mr. Kaspbrak.’ 

‘Mr. Kaspbrak, wow. That sounds so formal. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you called him by his first name, Snot Monster.’ 

His last glimpse of Tahani is her grinning as she backs out onto the main street, and drives away. He makes his way up to his room, intending to finish his packing so he can spend these last few hours with Eddie stress–free. He dials Eddie’s home number and holds the phone set in one hand, throwing socks and pants into his suitcase with casual abandon.

‘Hello?’ someone on the other end says, eventually, and Richie straightens up with a pair of underwear.

‘Hi,’ he says, ‘Who’s this?’

‘Myra,’ says Myra, sounding doubtful. ‘Who’s  _ this _ ?’

‘Oh, jeez.’ Richie laughs. ‘Sorry Myra. I was expecting Eds to get the phone. It’s Richie, Richie Tozier.’ 

‘Right, of course. How are you?’ Myra asks, sounding no less doubtful than before. 

‘Fine, thanks. So, is Eddie there, or is he still out driving?’ 

‘He’s here.’

Richie waits a minute, wondering if she’ll get there on her own. When she doesn’t he says, ‘Can I speak to him?’ 

‘Oh. Uh, no, I don’t think so.’ 

Richie pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at it. He gives himself a moment to work through his confusion, then asks, trying (and failing) not to sound like a whiny child, ‘why not?’ 

‘He’s sick. He came back home today with a fever.’ Myra coughs. ‘He doesn’t often go out as much… as he has this week.’  _ As he has with you _ . ‘I think he’s a bit run down.’ 

‘Oh.’  _ Right _ . ‘That’s too bad. Tell him I said, chin up bucko.’ 

‘I will. Thanks for calling.’ 

‘My great pleashaw,’ Richie says in a half–hearted attempt at Colonel Kissdrivel’s voice, then hangs up. He stares at his hand. He’s still holding his underwear. 

_ So… I won’t see Eddie again before I go? _

It’d been surprisingly painful to say goodbye to Stan the other day after less than 24 hours being reunited. He and Eddie had spent the better part of five days in each other’s company – and now he’s going to have to start cutting Eddie out from the hole he had filled once more. Without even getting to say goodbye. 

All of a sudden, more than anything else, Richie feels tired. He pushes his suitcase off his bed, dropping the remaining clothes god–knows–where and crawls under the sheets. He’ll be fine soon. He always is. Nothing phases Richie Tozier for long. Once, in high school, Richie watched a group of children punching an inflatable doll as part of a psychological experiment. He always thought he was a bit like that doll. Constantly assaulted by tiny fists, but never knocked over for long. 

Now he can almost feel them, sharp against old bruises.  _ Then I’ll go back to Cali and Eddie will stay here and get married and god knows when we’ll see each other again. _

He doesn’t even bother turning off the light, just pulls the extra pillow across the bed and covers his face with it, breathing through a gap between the two pillows. 

He falls asleep easy, which, at least, is a blessing. 

\+ 

When Richie wakes up, it’s dark outside and he has to get to Eddie  _ right away _ . 

Streaks of dream still colour his mind, and he stumbles through the room, pulling on shoes and smoothing his shirt, which was hiked up and crumpled from sleep. He’s downstairs in record time, and requesting a cab from the front desk. A slightly anxious looking receptionist tells him that yes, a cab is on it’s way, are you alright Mr. Tozier? Can I get you something to drink? 

Richie shakes his head, says, ‘thanks,’ and goes to stand outside in the cool air. There on the street, things start to clear. Not much, but enough that his attitude changes from frantic to steadily determined. There’s no way he’s going home without seeing Eddie one last time. No way in hell. He doesn’t know when they’ll see each other again and he has to – he has to – 

Richie gives Eddie’s address to the cab driver and then sits in uncharacteristic silence for the duration of the ride. The driver seems untroubled by Richie’s silence, but Richie doubts he would have cared either way. 

He has something very  _ very _ important to do. 

He has to stop being a coward. 

The car pulls up outside Eddie’s house, Richie hands him several bills and mutters, ‘keep the change.’ 

‘Cheers,’ says the driver, and then Richie is alone on the gravel. The air is still, cool, soft. His tie is still on from the show, but the knot came loose during his sleep and now it dangles, undone, around his neck. 

Richie picks up a few of the larger piece of gravel he can find and moves around Eddie’s house to where he knows the bedroom to be. It’s a lot easier to hit the pane when the house is only one storey tall. He throws three small rocks, and they bounce off the glass, landing in the flowerbeds. 

It feels so cliché until the light turns on and Richie realises that Eddie isn’t going to just stick his head out of the window for wooing, because that’s not how things work in real life. 

The window opens, and very clearly, Eddie says,

‘I’m sure there’s nothing out there, Marty.’ He doesn’t sound sure, not to Richie, but Myra’s murmured ascent shows it seemed to have convinced her. For a long moment Richie contemplates staying in the shadows, letting Eddie believe there really  _ isn’t _ anything out there. But it’s too late for that. Richie’s made his bed, now he’s got to fucking lie in it. 

‘Eds,’ he hisses. Eddie balks, just a bit, and his eyes flit to Richie. Eddie clenches his jaw, then turns around to face Myra. 

‘See? Nothing. You go back to sleep, Marty, I’m just going to get a drink of water.’ 

He looks back at Richie, then slides the window shut. 

Richie walks back the way he came and stops by the front door. He’s only waiting for a few minutes before it opens, and Eddie steps out in his pyjamas. 

They’re plaid and warm looking. 

‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘I don’t know.’ 

Eddie stares at him. 

‘What?’ 

‘I don’t know,’ Richie repeats, as honest as he gets. ‘God, Eds, I really don’t.’ 

‘Why are you  _ here _ ? Your plane leaves in four hours!’ 

‘What, you think I’d leave without a goodbye?’ Richie grips his chest. ‘You wound me, Edward.’ 

‘Did it have to be at midnight?’ 

‘Yeah, I know, you need all eight hours of sleep or your feet will melt or something. But I did call before. Myra said you were sick.’ 

‘What?’ 

‘Yeah. I called at about six. Like a reasonable human being. Myra said you had a fever.’ Richie pauses to look at Eddie. ‘How’re you feeling now?’ 

‘I never had a fever! I only got home about two hours ago!’ 

Richie gapes at him. ‘Why would Myra – ?’ Then he shakes his head. ‘That’s not important. I have to tell you something.’

Eddie folds his arms, watching Richie expectantly. Richie opens his mouth.

‘You punched a giant eye.’ 

Eddie gapes at him. ‘What?’ 

‘You  _ punched a giant eye. _ ’ That was  _ not  _ what Richie meant to say, but he more he says it, the more he knows  _ it’s true _ . 

‘Richie are you… on something?’ 

‘No!’ Richie has never hated his fat mouth more than he does right now at this moment. Every stupid joke, every comment, all of it now takes away from exactly how serious he is. To Eddie, he’s just the same ol’ Richie, spewing bullshit. But this isn’t bullshit. It’s everything. ‘You’re the bravest of all of us.’ 

Eddie’s face goes slack. ‘That–‘ 

‘Listen to me, Eddie. You’re the bravest of all of us. I said Bev was the best, and it’s true, but you’re the bravest, you hear me? And you – you should know,’ Richie finishes weakly. All the resolve is draining out of him as he stands there, on the dark grass, looking at Eddie Kaspbrak.  _ I shouldn’t have come _ , he thinks.  _ I’m not brave like you. _

Eddie is watching him, his expression inscrutable and shadowed. ‘That’s what you came here to say?’ he asks finally. ‘That I’m brave?’ 

Richie swallows all the other words in him, and nods. They tear at his oesophagus as they go. ‘Yeah,’ he says, hoarse. ‘That’s what I wanted to say.’ 

‘And now you’re going to leave?’ 

‘I –’ Richie stares at Eddie.  _ You want me to go? _ ‘I – yeah. Sure.’ 

Eddie nods. ‘Alright. What’s the number of your hotel room?’ 

‘What?’ 

‘Your hotel. Which room are you staying in?’ 

‘5.09.’ 

‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ 

Richie is, truly, speechless. Eddie gives him a little smile, and shoos him on his way. ‘Go. I’ll be there. I have something I have to say to you, too. And if I stand out here much longer I might get a real fever. My socks are getting wet, you know.’ 

Richie walks to the nearest main road in a daze. He flags down a cab and is soon back in his hotel room. Clothes are strewn everywhere, his suitcase is open on the floor. He doesn’t try to move anything, however. He just sits on the end of the bed, his head in his hands, wondering. Waiting. 

True to his word, Eddie knocks on the door almost ten minutes after Richie himself arrived. He opens the door and Eddie, now dressed in his official driving uniform minus the hat, moves across the threshold and past him. 

‘What’s with the get up?’ asks Richie, whose tongue just exists on autopilot. Eddie glances at his clothes. 

‘Told Myra I was going to meet a last minute client.’ 

‘You lied to Myra?’

Eddie shrugs. ‘She lied to me.’

‘Eddie –’

‘When you said I was brave,’ he interrupts. ‘Did you mean that?’ 

Richie stares at him. ‘’Course I did.’ 

‘Then let me be brave,’ Eddie says, and then he’s stepping forward and he’s been this close before, but never in the same  _ way _ , Richie’s never felt Eddie’s hands, careful but sure on his skin – Richie’s never had Eddie’s lips against his own – 

It takes him a moment to fully understand what’s happening. In that moment Eddie pulls back, just slightly, just enough to breathe, but then Richie is pressing one hand to the back of Eddie’s neck and sliding one hand into Eddie’s hair (he always knew it was soft but now it feels –  _ electric _ against his fingers) and pulling him back. Eddie’s lips carry a lingering coolness from the breeze outside, and when Eddie responds to the second kiss with enthusiasm, Richie loses track of all his other senses for a good few seconds, his whole world narrowing. Then one of Eddie’s hands moves from where it had been, just brushing his collarbone, and slips around his back. Eddie’s fingers press against his spine, and Richie almost staggers. They break apart. 

The light of the room is harsh and fluorescent. Eddie licks his lips. He opens his mouth to say something, then shrugs, and contents himself with pushing Richie back against the hotel room door, his hands sparking goose bumps on Richie’s skin. Richie does the best he can given the situation; wanting to be closer he pushes his arms under Eddie’s jacket and feels the thin cotton, the warm skin underneath. When Richie comes up for air for the third time, he pauses. Eddie’s breath is laboured and heavy, but he seems untroubled by it as he gazes up at Richie. 

‘What?’ he asks, managing to sound pissed despite the curl of pink in his cheeks and neck. Like, how–dare–you–stop–kissing–me. Richie honestly agrees, but he just has to – 

‘Well,’ Richie says, sorrowful, ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, Edster, but – your mom’s better.’ 

Eddie pinches him. ‘You really are a Trashmouth,’ he says, ‘you come over in the middle of the night and all you can talk about is giant eyeballs.’ 

‘The giant eyeballs were important,’ Richie says, indignant even though he can’t remember  _ how _ . Then he leers. ‘You’re right though, Eds, I am a Trashmouth. You wanna see how dirty this mouth can be?’ 

‘Shut up,’ Eddie orders. 

‘Make me.’ 

Eddie smirks, and Richie is so very much in love it aches a little. 

+

‘I always fancied myself as a mistress one day,’ Richie says later. They’re sitting on Richie’s bed, stretched out beside one another. Eddie did end up taking out his asthma puffer, and Richie had responded with a terrible quip about taking a certain person's breath away that really had to be said, no matter how bad it was, and now they’re side by side, casual–like except for the fact that Richie’s head is resting on Eddie’s shoulder and Eddie is holding one of Richie’s hands in both of his own. ‘Now that I’m faced with the reality of it, though, I dunno if I have the chops for it.’ 

Eddie snorts. ‘You’re not my mistress.’ 

Richie straightens slightly so as to look Eddie in the eye. ‘What about Myra?’ he asks, because as much as he dislikes her he doesn’t want to see her hurt, not really. Not more than she needs to be. Eddie shrugs. He looks slightly guilty, but Richie doubts it’s because of any of the things they’ve done together that night. 

‘I’m ending it with her,’ he says quietly. ‘I think even if – I think I should no matter what. She deserves better.’ 

‘So do you,’ says Richie, because he’s just spent the better part of half an hour thoroughly kissing his best friend, so he’s allowed to be honest now. Eddie doesn’t reply. ‘After you’ve broken it off, what will you do?’ 

‘Well.’ Eddie shrugs. ‘You’re going back to California.’ 

‘So come with me.’ 

Eddie stares at him. ‘I can’t! I’m not packed.’ 

‘I didn’t mean tomorrow, fuzz brain. I meant – just – that’s what you should do.

Come to California.’ Then, before Eddie can respond, Richie jerks upwards. ‘Fuck! My flight!’ 

‘You’re fine.’ Eddie flashes his watch in Richie’s direction. ‘You’ve got four hours.’ 

‘Right. I should finish packing, though.’ 

‘Probably. Don’t want to leave a pair of jeans in new york.’ 

‘Maybe I do,’ Richie says, slipping off the bed and beginning to gather his clothes. ‘An excuse to come back.’ 

‘I think I could give you a better excuse than that,’ Eddie says, all mild and innocent looking until Richie whips around to face him and he busts up laughing. Richie does too, waving his hands around like he used to when he was a kid. 

‘YowZA,’ he says, ‘yowza yowza! Kaspbrak gets off a  _ good _ one, ladies and gentlemen – ’

Eddie grabs him by the belt and Richie tumbles onto the bed, still grinning. 

‘Wow, uncle. You sure like to play rough.’ 

Eddie leans over him. ‘You know what’s rough?’ he asks. ‘Listening to you talk all day.’ 

‘Don’t be shy, Eds. I know I seduced you with my charming personality.’ 

‘More like despite it.’ Then Eddie blushes. ‘Wait, fuck –‘ and Richie points right at his face and cackles, 

‘A doozy of a Freudian slip from Eddie Kaspbrak.’ 

‘Fuck off. Have you finished packing?’ 

‘Hm?’ Richie peers over the edge of the bed at the suitcase, then scopes out the rest of the room. It’s not exactly a neat job, but everything’s in there. ‘Yeah, looks like it.’ 

‘Good,’ Eddie says, kisses him again.

+

Richie has never hated airports before – he was mostly indifferent – but now, standing here with Eddie and his suitcase, he really despises the place. 

The idea of waking up tomorrow  _ without _ Eddie’s sharp elbow digging into his side is annoyingly distressing. They’d eventually fallen asleep, only to be woken up by the call from the front desk that the cab was there to take Richie to the airport. Eddie had insisted upon coming, which Richie initially had mixed feelings about, but he figured at the end of the day, the more Eddie–time the better. Especially when he considers how he doesn’t know exactly when they’ll see each other again. Eddie, as though aware of Richie’s thoughts, tells him,

‘I’ll call you. When it’s over with Myra. You won’t have to wait long.’ 

‘That’s lucky, considering how impatient and immature I am,’ Richie says gravely. Eddie ignores him, instead fixing Richie with a hard, tender look and says, 

‘I’ll see you soon,’ 

All of a sudden, Richie’s throat feels full of hot coal. ‘Right,’ he manages to say. Right. ‘Ah, I should get going. Should head orf, to my gate. Don’t want to miss the flight.’ 

‘No.’ Eddie shakes his head. ‘Don’t want that.’ 

‘Right. Bye, Eds.’ 

‘Bye, Richie.’ 

They don’t hug, or even touch, which is probably for the best because Richie figures if they did, he wouldn’t be strong enough to go. Instead he just… leaves. Pulling the suitcase over the polished linoleum floor, his eyes fixed on the customs office ahead as he walks away from Eddie. 

+

The flight is nothing special. Richie pulls the complementary sleep mask over his eyes and blocks out the miles slowly filling the gap between himself and New York until they touch down in Cali. His mantra while he moves through the airport on the other side, gathering his luggage and getting into another cab, driving to his own home, is, ‘wait for his call, he’s going to call you, wait for it,’ 

Except then a week passes and Eddie doesn’t call. 

\+ 

Rich can’t remember why he thought he would.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Rich is the third to arrive.

By the time he’s standing outside Jade of the Orient, he’s only remembered a handful of things about Derry, Maine, and the fourteen years he spent here. 

One thing is how walking around in summer is like being sprayed by a very fine, warm mist until you find your way indoors again.

Another is blind terror. Terror the likes of which he’s been feeling disjointed flashes of for the past twenty–seven years and never understood or examined. He takes a moment to let his heartbeat slow, wipe his palms on his trousers, thinks,  _ time to face the music _ –  and then finds himself briefly and desperately distracted, wondering about the origin of that saying and it’s meaning – ‘facing the music,’ had never sounded that bad to him – until he comes out into the booked private room and there around the table are Ben Hanscom and Beverly Marsh. There’s a second of silence, then Bev cries, ‘Richie!’ and springs out of her seat to hug him. 

Ben stands as well, smiling – Rich grins back. 

‘Hey Benny boy,’ he says over Bev’s shoulder. ‘Looks like someone got to you with the hedge clippers. There’s barely anything left to love!’ 

‘And yet it’s easier than trying to love  _ you _ ,’ Beverly says, moving away to stand by Ben’s side. Ben seems unfazed by Rich’s comments, and when he hugs Rich it’s just as good and comforting as it was when they were twelve and Ben was unanimously elected the best hugger. He was such a sweet kid, and he hugged like everything else he did – carefully, honestly. 

Rich’s glad he opted to leave the sunglasses on when he pulls back from Ben. ‘Ah Haystack,’ he says, and swallows. ‘You’re breakin’ my heart.’ Ben doesn’t notice the slight crack to his voice but Bev, curse her, does, and she elbows him in her friendly way.  

‘So, you got old.’ 

‘Sure did.’ He glances around the private room. ‘Guess the others aren’t here yet.’

Ben shakes his head. ‘I got here first, then Bev arrived about five minutes ago.’ 

'I hope they hurry up, I’m starved. I haven’t eaten since the last time I ate.’

‘I think you’re in luck.’ Beverly waves at someone approaching the door, and Rich turns around to see Eddie walking into the room. Beverly rushes to hug him, followed by Ben, but Rich hangs back. Seeing Beverly and Ben was great, really, but it didn’t fill him with the almost nauseating sense of urgency he feels now. Urgency to do what? It’s like all those times when he was a kid, in summer, and his mother was telling him to ‘go to bed, Richie, it’s nearly half past ten!’ and he would lie awake staring at the ceiling, his skin buzzing with energy. Then Eddie is turning towards him and Richie covers up his feelings the same way he always does; by making noise.

‘Lord have mercy, it’s our own Edith Kasprak!’ 

In response, Eddie faces Richie. For a second Richie’s chest goes cold – the look Eddie gives him is so blank.  _ Maybe he doesn’t remember me? _

Then Eddie says, 

‘Who’s this chucklefuck?’ 

Beverly cackles like the witch she is, and Richie grabs Eddie round the neck to pull him in, grinning. 

‘A good one right out the bat!’ he crows, beaming down at Eddie. Eddie grins back. They look at each other. 

_ All right then. _

+

Not too long after Eddie, Bill and Mike arrive, looking adult and grave until Bill calls out,

‘fuck you and the horse you rode in on, trashmouth,’ and suddenly everything slips back into place. The six of them decide to start eating, seeing as it’s getting on for two o’clock, and Stan can eat when he arrives. (No one says ‘if’ he arrives, but the thought is there. And then that thought is quickly replaced with bowls and bowls of fine Chinese cuisine.)

It is, Richie assumes, just like any other reunion of old childhood friends – with the added bonus of potential death and maiming. They go around the circle talking about careers; Ben and Bill of course, the all know, but Beverly recently quit her job and is opening a new fashion line with her friend and business partner, Kay, and Mike is the head librarian at Derry library. 

‘Does that mean  _ you’re _ the one shushing everyone now?’ Rich asks. Mike nods, grinning. 

‘Wow.’ Rich whistles. ‘Must be a real rush.’ 

Bev knocks his shoulder, and Mike gives him a very polished glare and puts his finger to his lips. It’s such a firm gesture Rich actually sits back slightly, mimes locking up his lips. Everyone else applauds. 

‘After all these y–years,’ Bill says admiringly. ‘Y–you’re a god, Mike.’ 

They swap addresses, too, and colleges they studied at – Ben redesigned the media centre at Eddie’s old college, they find out. And last but not least – marriage. Rich goes first this time, and shakes his head easily. He’s never even  _ looked _ for a potential fiancée. He figures he’ll know when he knows, and so far there hasn’t been anyone worth making the jump for. Beverly, next to him, shakes her head too – he can see, at the foot of the table, Ben’s eyes are alight with that old, warm glow. Then Ben shakes his head, and Bill, and Mike, and finally – seated on Rich’s other side, Eddie. He probably doesn’t hesitate, but it sure feels like he does, feels like there’s a huge gap between Mike’s ‘no,’ and Eddie’s ‘not me, either.’ 

Rich stares at him. He doesn’t enjoy being speechless – as much as his spew of bullshit annoys everyone he encounters, it’s better than those few moments where his head just… freezes, and all he can do is sit there.  _ Thank god _ , he thinks, with an in–proportionate amount of fervour. Eddie isn’t looking at him, he’s staring at his inhaler instead. 

‘Well,’ Rich says finally, because he’s never plugged up for too long. ‘What a handsome array of bachelors.’ 

‘We’ve all had partners, right?’ Bev asks, sounding slightly apprehensive. ‘I mean, I have – I was engaged actually. But I just never…’ she trails off, looking around the room for confirmation. Bill nods. 

‘I went on a few dates w–w–with Audra Phillips.’ 

Rich whistles. ‘The film star? Denbrough you fox. Why didn’t you marry her, then?’ 

Bill frowns slightly. ‘W–we just never cluh–clicked, I guess. She was nice, but… w–we only wuh–ent on three dates.’ 

Eddie opens his mouth, nodding, when suddenly Mike gets to his feet, his eyes wide. 

‘I’ll be back in a sec,’ he says, and pushes open the glass doors that lead to their private room. Eddie falls silent and he, along with the others, watch as Mike rounds the corner that leads to the main restaurant. He’s gone only for a few moments and then he returns, glancing over his shoulder as he walks, grinning at something behind him. Someone. 

Mike opens the door, says, 

‘Look who finally made it!’ and in walks Stanley Uris.

For a second there’s silence, then Rich yells,

‘Sta– _ ahn _ ! You’re finally here!’ 

‘I’m as shocked as you are,’ Stan mutters, wiping a visibly trembling hand across his forehead. He slides into the closest and only remaining available seat, on Bev’s other side and Richie feels his stomach unclench at the sight of them, all seven of them. No matter what happens – and he doesn’t have the faintest fucking clue what that might be – they’ll face it together, just like before. Rich grins despite himself. 

‘Sticky rice, Stan?’ 

+

Rich doesn’t want to split up after lunch, who would? Walk around a town like Derry all on his lonesome, try to remember why he feels so goddamn scared, why he came back? Who killed little Georgie Denbrough? No thanks. But Mike suggested it, and Big Bill agrees, and once those two have a plan you can’t argue with them.

Before – last time – Big Bill was definitely the leader. No one would have argued that point. But this time it feels as though Mike’s stepped up to join Bill. Maybe because he stayed, and now he’s almost even more determined to finish what they started than Bill is. 

 

They split up. More pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place, but it’s a puzzle made out of jagged glass and Rich cuts himself on the corners of memory until he’s bleeding all over.

After the Paul Bunyan attack he takes himself home and changes – not bothering to replace his contacts. And he brings a plastic bag full of alcohol, because even if the others won’t join him in a drink, it may just be the only way he’ll get through the night.

 

+

They gather in the library, the seven of them again. Already Rich can feel the sting of the afternoon’s events being soothed as they sprawl around the information desk, teasing Eddie’s choice of drink.

‘– very healthy,’ he finishes, glowering, and they all burst into laughter.

‘What happened to your tonic water?’ Rich asks, speaking over the noise  from the others. ‘I thought that stuff was healthy enough for you.’

‘Prune juice is better,’ Eddie says, then frowns. ‘When –’

‘You’re wearing glasses again, Richie?’ Bev interrupts.

‘Yeah. The contacts started to burn, so I took them out.’

This declaration is followed by a moment of silence in which Rich licks his lips and turns to Big Bill. ‘Maybe we should get down to business?’

 

He nods. In a circle they take turns to clarify fragments of that summer that had begun to return to them that afternoon. Mike just listens, nodding along encouragingly every now and again – he’s had to live with these memories for the longest, but that means he’s used to them. For him, they’ve lost some of their power. For Rich however, they now drip in his mind, as bright as the blood that was once again pooling in his hands. The old scars on his palms have reopened.

‘We’re in it to the end, aren’t we?’ Beverly asks. ‘God help us, we’re in it to the end.’ Ben takes her hand, Rich watching as his fingers slip through hers and blood is pressed to blood. Bill takes Beverly’s other hand and holds his free one out to Eddie,

‘Quh–quh–quick!’ he says, and so Eddie steps forward, and then Mike, and Richie follows dazedly, until the only one left breaking the circle is Stan. He looks at them, the six of them, and Big Bill says,

‘Stan.’

Stan clasps Richie’s hand, and Ben’s, and then the circle is complete.

The typewriter ticks beside them and the wind blows and the library doors bang open and then shut again, a pile of books topples over and they fall to the floor with several steady thuds – Richie is fixed in place, his feet welded to the ground as lightning coils between the seven of them, quick and bright and sharp –

_ This is what  _ It’s  _ afraid of.  _

 

All the library doors slam shut in unison.

The grandfather clock behind the desk chimes once, and Richie is suddenly able to let go of Stan and Mike. They drop hands almost in unison, staring at one another. Richie’s cheeks are glowing with heat, Beverly still has tear tracks down her face but she’s no longer crying.   

‘That might be enough for one night,’ Bill says lowly, rubbing a hand over his face. There is little response from the others, all of them wrapped up still in the strange power they had felt just then. It was – it had been – exhilarating. Exhausting. Richie feels drained, but also –

‘I remember.’ Beverly looks up, and her expression isn’t easily comprehensible. It could be joy, or fear, or both, or neither. ‘I remember  _ everything.  _ I remember the summer, all of it,’ she says, and Richie hears murmur of agreement. He does, too. He remembers every sun–soaked second, but he  _ still –  _ there’s still  _ something  _ – obviously it’s not that important though. Whatever he still can’t remember won’t help them defeat It. But it bugs him anyway, a phantom itch that won’t go away no matter how much he scratches.

 

+

They leave the library in small groups. Ben and Beverly first, walking closely, heads bent towards one another. Stan, Eddie and Richie go next, leaving Mike to close up the library at his insistence, and Bill with him. The three of them walk back to the Derry townhouse in near silence, and soon Richie is alone in his hotel room. He collapses onto the bed and lies there, drifting in and out of unwanted memory until suddenly it occurs to him that his throat is the driest it’s ever been in his life. He wants a drink. But not of alcohol. He wants cool water, with ice cubes and those little beads of condensation around the rim.

The ice machine is on the sixth floor, four above Richie. He runs up the stairs two at a time, because no ones around and hotels always make him feel oddly childish. The sixth floor has bright yellow wallpaper where his was green, and he admires it for a moment, when, to his left,

‘Richie?’ 

He glances over his shoulder to see Eddie peering out of a door that must lead into his own hotel room. He hasn’t put on his pyjamas yet, but his suspenders are off his shoulders and his feet are bare. Richie beams at him. 

‘Hey, Eds. Fancy seeing you here.’ 

‘You too. Why’re you on this level? Isn’t your room–‘

‘217, yeah. I came up for ice. They put it at the top floor of the hotel as kind of a deterrent, you know? Only the worthy may–‘

‘Can I ask you something?’ 

Richie considers. ‘Mm…no. I don’t think so.’ 

Eddie rolls his eyes. ‘Hardy har har. Seriously, Richie.’ 

‘Alright.’ Richie spreads his hands wide to indicate his sincerity. ‘Ask away, dear heart.’ 

But Eddie doesn’t, not straight away. He waits a few seconds, eyes crinkled up in thought behind his glasses. So strange, how Eddie came back with frames and Richie came back without them. Richie’s about to comment on this, when Eddie says finally –

‘Do you remember?’ 

‘Very cryptic, Eds. Nicely done.’  

Eddie groans. ‘I don’t know how to – you said you remembered everything from that summer. Is that all? Do you remember what we… what I did? Maybe that’s the best way to put it.’

Richie gapes at him. ‘Aw Eds! How could I not remember what you did?’ He slings an arm over Eddie’s shoulder and pulls him in, gives him a gentle shake. ‘You punched a giant eye, right in the… well, the eye, for chrissake!’

Eddie smiles a little at this. ‘Yeah. That’s what you said that before, too, even though I had no idea what the hell you were talking about then. So–’

‘Wait, wait. Before what? Was this in the library?’ Richie lets out his breathe in a puff. If he  _ has  _ already mentioned it, he can’t remember.  _ Jesus. I’m so fucking old. _

‘No.’ Eddie stares at him. ‘No the–‘, and then, right before Richie’s eyes, Eddie’s whole body slumps. He seems to shrivel inward slightly.

‘Nevermind.’

Richie frowns. ‘You alright?’

‘Fine.’

‘What did you mean ‘before’?’  _ Damn _ , Richie thinks, _ just when it seemed like I was getting my fucking footing in this town _ – ‘Have I already said that to you?’

Eddie shrugs but his face looks pinched and tired. For a moment he studies Richie’s face. Then he reaches out and hooks his finger under Richie’s top button, tugging him forward enough to reach only Richie’s jaw with his lips, but that seems to be enough. He pulls back, every movement purposeful. Richie has to look away. 

‘Eddie–‘ 

‘Night.’ He steps back into his room and shuts the door gently, leaving Richie alone in the yellow corridor. 

Richie stares at Eddie’s door for a while, then heads back downstairs to his own room. He’s just unlocked the door when he remembers he  _ still _ doesn’t have any ice. 

‘Fuck.’ He deliberates for a second, then decides against going upstairs again. No thanks, he’d rather stay in this relatively nice hotel room and watch trashy late night TV. Rather not think about anything, anything important. Which is exactly what he does, right up until the second before he falls asleep. 

But in that second, Richie feels wrong.

+

He wakes up hours later, and the world goes into hyper speed.

It was the phone that woke him. He rolls over to answer, hears Eddie’s voice, frantic, telling him that ‘Bill didn’t pick up,’ and something about ‘Henry Bowers,’ get ‘up here, Richie!’

So he does, pulling on a sports–coat because it’s the only thing he can reach and running up the stairs again, two at a time except he doesn’t feel giddy or childish now. He doesn’t feel much of anything until he crashes into Eddie’s room. Henry Bowers is fucking dead on the floor and Eddie’s arm is broken (again) and Bill is… missing?

Ben, Bev and Stan soon follow him up there, obviously Eddie had called them as well. Soon they’re trying to figure out where the hell Bill is and what to do with the fucking body. 

‘Try calling Mike,’ Stan says eventually, his face pale but steady. He took one look at Henry and that for some reason, seemed to calm him down more than anything else. Now he’s all boyscout preparedness and level headed while Richie is trying not to speed Eddie down to the hospital and then the fuck out of Derry. 

‘Yeah, Mike might know.’ Eddie is washed out with pain, but no less determined. ‘Bill stayed behind at the library when we left tonight, didn’t he?’ He doesn’t mention the blood already on Henry’s knife, the wounds already inflicted but Richie still can’t picture anything but Bill’s body, dead, like Georgie, and how close Eddie came to that fate as well. Ben throws a sheet over the body, then calls Mike’s home phone number. There’s no answer, so he dials the library instead; Richie hovers while Bev rips the bed sheets into strips. 

‘Anyone know how to make a sling?’ she asks. Richie nods, needing to do something with himself. He sits down besides Eddie on the bed. 

‘Hello, Mike?’ Ben is saying, and Stan and Bev cluster around the phone, creating some space in the overcrowded room. Eddie lets out a deep sigh, then glances at Richie. 

‘You alright?’ 

‘Way to keep your priorities straight, Eds.’ He slides the sheet around Eddie’s shoulder and begins to fashion the sling. This is better. Focusing on Eddie is better. Except –  _ you could have fucking died _ .  _ Any of us could have. Any of us still could _ . He can remember having this revelation before, these thoughts, on the floor of Georgie’s bedroom with Bill. What’d he done the next day? Gone to the movies?  _ Jesus christ _ . Eddie takes Richie’s hand with his one good one, stilling him. 

‘Richie,’ he says, and Richie quiets down. 

‘Bill’s at the library,’ Ben interrupts. ‘He’s with Mike. They – they’re waiting for an ambulance.’ 

Richie’s head snaps around. ‘What?’ 

‘Mike got stabbed.’ 

‘Jesus christ,’ Richie says, out loud this time. 

‘Is Mike alright?’ Beverly asks.

‘It could’ve been a lot worse. Lucky Bill was there.’

‘Was it Henry?’

Ben nods, and Eddie’s jaw sets. Richie finishes the sling with a final knot, but he can’t move away from Eddie, he can’t make his limbs work, really.

‘Should we –’

Ben holds up a finger, phone still pressed to his ear. He nods twice, says,

‘Are you sure?’ and then, ‘yeah, of course. We’re all in Eddie’s room. See you soon.’ He hangs the phone up and slumps against the wall, letting his breathe out in a long, low sigh. ‘When I hung up I could hear the sirens, so Mike’ll be at the hospital soon. Bill’s not going to the hospital with him. He just left the library – he said he didn’t think the ambulance workers should see him.’

‘Why?’ Bev asks. Ben shrugs.

‘He’ll probably explain when he gets here. Shouldn’t be too long, it’s only a four minute walk and he’ll probably be running. He’ll be here soon.’

They fall into silence.

+

‘How’s Mike?’ Ben says, almost before Bill has crossed the threshold into Eddie’s room. He doesn’t answer for a moment, focused instead on pulling off his jacket to reveal a blood–stained shirt underneath, and Beverly hisses at the sight.

‘He lost that much blood?’

Bill nods heavily. ‘I passed the ah–ambulance on the street ah–ah–as I ran, so they should have reah-ached him by now.’

‘Why didn’t you want the others to see you?’ asks Stan, and Bill considers this. It’s clear from his face that he was acting on impulse alone, only now able to sort through the reasoning behind the decision. Eventually he says –

‘I think that’s just how it has to be. I don’t think wuh–we can involve ah–anyone else in this. That means we cah–an’t visit him in hospital – y-yet ah–t least.’

‘What about Eddie?’ Richie asks suddenly, gesturing to Eddie’s arm.

Bill looks at Eddie, his face very grave. ‘Can y-you manage?’

‘I can,’ he says, with all the courage he had shown that summer. Richie’s veins run hot with blood that cries out for Eddie.

From the corner, Ben speaks.

‘We have to do it now, don’t we Big Bill?’

Bill nods.

‘I think so.’

Richie clambers to his feet. He’s afraid, terribly terribly afraid, but waiting won’t change that. He’s never going to be unafraid. So he may as well –

‘Let’s go.’  

The others get to their feet around him, feeling slightly off–kilter without Mike, but determined nonetheless. Bill looks at them, and they at him, and again Richie remembers how much he’d loved these kids, his friends. How he’d do anything for them.

‘Lead the way,’ Big Bill says, looking at Eddie.

+

Borne of Bill’s instincts, Richie looks anxiously up and down the streets as they drive towards the barrens. But after they pass their third empty road he begins to feel a different kind of anxiety. They’re on a path that won’t be blocked, now. It’s too close to the end.

They won’t see anyone else now.

Eddie sits in the back with Bill, directing Richie easily to their old childhood haunt. Beside them sit Stan and Beverly, conversing in low voices, with Richie and Ben in the front. Ben’s long, thin hands have been thrust deep into his pockets, he chews the corner of his lip. Richie would crack a joke, if he could, but he keeps thinking back to Mike, alone in a hospital room.  _ He should be here, with us. _ He turns on the radio, but quickly turns it off again when it becomes clear that anything outside the six of them is not to be trusted (‘ _ you let It kill me, Bill! _ ’).

The barrens loom to their left, a great shadow fringed with trees. Through the forest they walk in pairs, Ben leading them now to the manhole cover. At the circular opening they stop. Richie looks down the dim hole.  _ Into the eye of the beast,  _ he thinks suddenly.  _ Is that the saying? Or am I confusing it with the eye of the storm – but that means somewhere calm. And down here is anything fucking but. _

He claps his hands, and the others jump.

‘Come now!’ he declares, voice ringing out over the night soaked land around them. ‘Let us not linger on the threshold of triumph! On we march!’ He isn’t sure what Voice that was – maybe Brave–Richie–voice, but whatever the case, he swings his legs over onto the first rung of the stairs and begins the descent into the sewers once more.

+

It takes less time for them to reach It’s lair this time around, almost as if, as Bill says, It  _ wants  _ them to come.

‘It isn’t ah–ah–afraid ah–anymore,’ Bill says, as they stand, recuperating from the circle they formed to send Mike strength. ‘Or – no. It is. But It thinks we cah–an’t win, because we’re ah–ah–adults.’

‘Fuck that.’ Richie folds his arms over his chest. ‘Let’s kill it.’

The aftereffects of their circle, the determination he feels lasts a good long time, pushing him through It’s door, spurring him into the ritual of Chud when Bill begins to falter, carrying him until it withdraws, suddenly, dumping him onto the dirty floor beside a bleeding –

A bleeding – 

A  _ dying – _

_‘Eddie_ , _’_ he chokes. Bev sits beside him and the others cluster around, Bill and Ben and Stan. Stan immediately drops to his knees and pulls off his jumper, then the shirt underneath. Eddie’s breath flickers in and out of his chest, too fast and too shallow to be supplying him with the right amount of oxygen – Richie searches for his wrist and grips it. Eddie looks at him.

‘Richie,’ he whispers.

‘What’s up, Eds?’ Richie leans over Eddie, careful not to let his tears fall onto Eddie’s already damp face.

‘I have to – tell you something.’

Richie shakes his head. ‘No, I have to tell  _ you  _ something.’ He stares down at Eddie’s pale face, the light growing and dimming, and all he can think is  _ I’ve seen this before. This has happened before. Where… where have I… _

Once, when he was still a few years shy of graduating high school, Richie had climbed the tallest tree on the school ground instead of going to biology.  _ Learning by doing, Eddie baby, _ he’d called down when Eddie had found him, and asked what the hell he was doing up there.

‘Get the fuck down,’ Eddie yelled, squinting against the bright sun. ‘We’re going to Stan’s to play ultimate monopoly.’

‘Coming, my love!’ Richie begun to shimmy his way down the tree. It wasn’t until he was almost comically close to the ground that he hit a snag. To climb up the tree he had taken a running jump at the trunk and scrabbled there for a foothold a good few inches off the ground. Holding onto the nearest branch, searching with his feet, he couldn’t find the foothold from before. He hung there for a moment, looking down. It wasn’t that far, he’d reasoned. He could simply drop to the ground. And before it could occur to him why that  _ wasn’t  _ a good idea, he let go of the branch and crashed into the ground, to almost immediate and excruciating pain. He had to forego the ultimate monopoly for a trip to the doctors instead, to have his shoulder popped back into place where it had become dislocated.

The feeling of the bone shifting brought tears to Richie’s eyes. It was an bright, aching snap of pain followed instantly by lightheaded relief. 

That was how Richie felt now. Like his bones were moving, rolling over to where they should be in his body and leaving him dizzy. 

‘Why didn’t you call?’ he bursts out, suddenly, and Eddie’s eyes, partially closed a moment ago, fling open. Richie is shaking,  _ finally everything is back in place _ . His stomach burns with a strange mixture of grief and adrenaline and anger and love, and he squeezes Eddie’s hand. At Eddie’s side, Stan is wrapping shreds of his own shirt around Eddie’s bleeding shoulder, tightly compressing the wound. 

‘Richie,’ Bill calls, ‘we have to go after It. It’s still alive, just injured, and we have to finish It this time.’

_ He’s stopped stuttering again,  _ Richie thinks wildly. Eddie shifts a little in his lap, and Richie looks down into Eddie’s eyes. His expression burns. 

‘Go kill that bitch,’ he breathes. Richie glances at Stan, who nods. 

‘The bleeding isn’t under control, but it’s getting there. Go. I’ll look after him.’ Richie shifts Eddie onto Bev’s lap and then, quickly, ducks down and presses a kiss to Eddie’s cheek. 

‘You better think of a real good fucking answer while I’m gone.’

The corners of Eddie’s mouth twitch. ‘Go.’

Richie does, and he and Ben and Bill together finish what they’d started all those years ago. They kill It, and crush It’s eggs, and by the time Richie’s returned Eddie is slumped against Bev, his eyes shut, his pulse faint under Richie’s fingers. 

‘He fainted,’ Stan explains. ‘The bandages won’t stop the blood for long. We need to get him to a hospital. Is it done?’ 

‘It is,’ Bill answers from behind Richie. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ 

+

Without Eddie to guide them on their way out they take far longer, stumbling through endless dark passages. Richie leads, Eddie carried between him and Ben. He isn’t afraid anymore, because now that they’ve defeated It the only thing left is to get Eddie safe, and failure is inconceivable.  

+

They reach the hospital just in time to watch most of Derry fall in on it’s rotting foundations. 

‘Good riddance,’ Stan says.

+

Eddie is given the room next to Mike. Richie refuses to leave his side, and not even Bill can convince him to go back to the hotel – especially seeing as Bill himself is just as stubbornly sitting by Mike as the day draws on. Stan leaves that very morning, hugging all of them. 

‘I have to see my wife,’ he says, by way of explanation, and though Richie hates to see him go he also understands – to sleep beside a loved one after what they just experienced – no one could begrudge him that. 

Before he left, Stan pulled Richie a little way away from Eddie’s bed. 

‘I remember seeing you,’ he’d said. ‘In New York. Eddie too. I didn’t before, but when Eddie got hurt it came back.’

‘It was the same for me.’ Richie laughed, but it was an angry sound. ‘I can’t believe I forgot. I can’t believe I forgot any of it.’ 

Stan looked at him steadily for a moment. ‘I almost didn’t come, you know. Back.’

‘But you did. We all did.’

‘Yeah. We all did.’ Stan leaned in and hugged Richie. ‘Don’t be a stranger, trashmouth.’

Then he was gone. 

Ben and Beverly were the next to go. They left together, looking like they’d both finally figured something out that they’d been struggling with for years. 

‘Bill was asleep in Mike’s room when we went to say goodbye,’ Bev says. ‘We didn’t want to wake them.’

‘Not even to let them know you’re going?’

She shrugs. ‘Well, we’ll be seeing them soon enough.’ She says it with such fervor Richie forgets to be skeptical until she and Ben have sped out of sight. But at the same time, it doesn’t feel like before. The memories are still there, all of them. 

The walk back to Eddie’s room is oddly hopeful. He pauses outside Mike’s room and peers in, meaning to check whether both its occupants are still asleep, and smirks, then moves past it to the next room.

Eddie looks around as he enters. 

‘Everyone’s pairing off. How’re you feeling?’ 

Eddie shifts a little. Richie perches on the bed beside him, and runs a quick finger over his jawline. 

‘I feel lopsided.’ 

‘Your face is lopsided.’ 

Eddie glances in the direction of the window. ‘Bev and Ben are gone?’

‘Yeah. But Bev thinks we’ll see them again soon.’ 

‘Maybe we’ll be invited to their wedding.’  

‘Speaking of weddings. And engagements.’  

Eddie looks slightly sheepish,  and Richie grins despite himself. 

‘I know it wasn’t your fault,’ he says, leaning forward and pressing a kiss on Eddie’s forehead. ‘I forgot too.’ His lips fall above the arch of Eddie’s eyebrow. ‘But – you didn’t go through with the wedding at least.’ Eddie’s cheek. ‘So I’ll forgive you.’ Eddie’s nose. ‘If you promise to make it worth my while.’ 

He goes to kiss Eddie’s other cheek, but jerks back, laughing, wiping saliva off his face. Eddie grins at him. Then he shrugs his shoulder, looking suddenly melancholy. 

‘I suppose  _ that  _ part I did remember. I knew that… I couldn’t marry Myra. And suddenly I felt strong enough to tell her. I never knew where that strength came from.’ 

‘Uh, I’ll tell you where.’ Richie pokes Eddie’s chest. ‘Right there, Eddie baby.’

Eddie says nothing for a moment, then, ‘what do you mean, everyone’s pairing off?’

‘Oh. Well there’s Bev and Ben and Big Bill and Mike.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah. They sure ain’t sleepin’ in there, I tell ya that much,’ he drawls. 

Eddie snickers. For a moment silence falls, then Richie clears his throat. ‘So, uh. That just leaves us two.’

‘I guess it does.’ 

‘I know… I asked you a long time ago. But if you still want – well.’

Eddie looks at him for a moment. His skin is slowly gaining back it’s usual colour, so unlike the grey–white hue it was in the sewers. ‘How’d you do it, huh?’ he asks quietly, smoothing back the hair on Richie’s forehead with his good hand. ‘You’re such a doofus. How’d you end up the love of my fucking love?’ 

Richie kisses his palm. ‘Magic,’ he says.  
  



End file.
